Prior art remote telephone communication, using either a hard-wire or radio transmission medium, has distinct disadvantages. Generally, systems for providing such communications include a central base station which serves as the communication link between the remote network subscribers and the primary telephone system. The base station communicates with the network subscribers via channels which are fewer in number than the number of subscribers (i.e. the so-called trunk-type or concentrated-type system). There is no call routing capability in such a system; that is, there are no alternate paths for routing a call to a network. Further, all network subscriber stations must be close enough to the central or base station to receive all transmissions; alternatively, separate base station type repeaters must be employed, requiring additional expense. Moreover, if the network uses radio wave transmission, each subscriber station can service only one telephone subscriber. Still further, these types of networks have no capability of subscriber metering and ticketing.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a switched network telephone distribution system, using radio or hard-wire transmission, which is capable of: alternate call routing; extending the range of the central station implant requiring separate repeater stations; and complete automatic subscriber metering and ticketing.